Hi Richard,
At 20:31 02-09-2009, Richard Barnes wrote:
Stated at more length:
What is clearly going on here is that our branding is out of sync
with the expectations of our customers. Whatever their historical
meaning, RFCs are now interpreted by the broad community as
documents that have the been reviewed and approved, to a greater or
lesser degree, by the Internet community. I think we all agree that
documents that go through the IETF or the IAB can more or less
legitimately claim that imprimatur.
Some people interpret RFCs as Internet Standards even though the
document contains "It does not specify an Internet standard of any
kind." on the first page. One of the differences between the IETF
Stream and the Independent Stream is that the former is reviewed by
the IETF Community. The IETF Community is small part of the Internet
community. This discussion is about a specific type of IESG Note
where the IESG is supposed to only check for conflicts between the
work of the IETF and the documents submitted. That sounds fairly
simple. This discussion highlights there may be divergent views even
for simple questions.
Independent submissions clearly cannot. Given that, it's not clear
to me why the independent stream exists at all, other than for
historical reasons.
The Independent Stream offers you a path to publish your document if
the IESG does not find it suitable for publication. If you are using
that path to bypass an IETF Working Group, the IESG Note under
discussion comes into play.
Some people find the IETF path too expensive as it seems that you
have to be an insider to get your document published.
The important point here is that you are offering a workable
alternative to people to publish their work even though the IETF does
not agree with the contents of the document, i.e. diverse views are
not suppressed. It's more than a check and balance. Having this
stream also allows the IETF to assess the effectiveness of its
processes and document quality. In other words, if it is faster to
publish through the Independent Stream and the output of that stream
is better, the IETF can find out whether there is a problem with its stream.
Given that the abolition of the independent stream doesn't seem to
be an option at this point, the next best thing to do is to require
that independent-stream RFCs alert the reader to two things:
1. That this is not a document that has received IETF or IAB review, and
2. If the Internet community has any serious concerns, what they are
Clearly the first point is an issue for Headers and
Boilerplates. The second point is represented in the current
process by IESG notes; if the Internet community has concerns about
a document, they can be included in the document as an IESG
note. Given that the IESG is selected through a community process,
I'm comfortable with this delegation, though requiring IETF
consensus would clearly add some assurance.
The second point is not represented in the current process by the
IESG Note under discussion. That note does not mean that the
Internet community has concerns. It means that it is the opinion of
the IESG that the document fulfills one of the five conditions in Section 3.
The other implication of the above paragraph is that the *absence*
of an IESG note indicates to the reader that the community has no
serious concerns, which means that enabling the ISE to reject IESG
notes effectively enables the ISE to speak on behalf of the
community. Given the choice, I would prefer the IESG to speak for
me than the ISE.
The ISE is not speaking on behalf of the IETF Community.
I don't know whether you would agree to me as to whether the RFC
Editor has been able to ensure the consistency of the RFC Series over
the years. I encourage you to read some of the notes from Bob Braden
and the RFC Editor team about the RFC Editor. Some of them may be
historical in nature but they also spell out a constant line of
thinking. The decisions taken are not done lightly and they are
still relevant after all these years. Consistency also means that it
is highly unlikely the RFC Editor will drop an IESG Note based on a whim.
At 14:23 02-09-2009, Russ Housley wrote:
Please, let's try to answer this one question on this thread: When
the IESG performs review of an Independent stream or IRTF stream
document and provides an IESG Note, does the RFC Editor have the
authority (without a request for reconsideration or an appeal) to
publish the document without the IESG Note?
It would be better to define the problem. As I see it, the problem
is that the RFC Editor might drop the IESG Note and publish the
document as a RFC. Once that is done, there is no way to revert
back. With the forthcoming changes to the RFC Editor, the IETF
Community and/or the IESG are facing an unknown. I suggest following
John's proposal. A formal notification from the ISE and delay in the
publication gives the IESG the opportunity to take any action it deems fit.
Regards,
-sm
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf